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Today Today - November 2013

The other day in Toshima-ku I saw someone actually riding a penny-farthing - one of the display models that can sometimes be seen outside Bridgestone bicycle dealerships - to the Seven-11.

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Then the internet randomly gave me this…

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I am not sure what to conclude.
 
My riding has been at an almost standstill due to some health issues. I did however fit some nice wider Cinelli handlebars on the Viner bought from @thomas and now it basically feels like the perfect, nippy and comfortable ride. Looks awesome too.
 
My week started with a sore throat, which gradually got worse and finally turned into a one-tissue-box-a-day cold for two days.

Last night I slept really well and in the morning the nose wasn't running any more. So in the afternoon I went out and rode 70 km across Tokyo, down the Arakawa and back to Setagaya.

Couple at shinto shrine:
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Arakawa sunset with Mt Fuji:
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Porsche 356 1600 (at least 48 years old, as production ended in 1965):
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In the evening Shintaro and I installed ANT+ cadence and speed sensors on my bike. On the Bike Friday there isn't enough overlap between the cranks and the rear wheel for the Garmin combined speed/cadence sensor sensor, which is why I went for the Bontrager speed and cadence sensors. They are separate units. The cadence sensor goes on the chain stay while the speed sensor is attached to the front fork.

The speed sensor will help in tunnels but also on steep climbs, where the Garmin often stops showing speed because the relatively inaccurate GPS data becomes insufficient for measuring speed when it drops much below about 8 km/h. I don't really have any idea what sort of cadence I use and how it varies by ride, so it will be interesting to track.
 
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Still not well enough to do a full ride, and an incredibly busy day. But enjoyed the amazing weather with a short trip to Jindaiji. The leaves there are perfect right now.
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Noticed that my tyres/wheels are a lot more noisy on this bike than my other one.
 
Saturday @theDude, one other dude and I headed for Ome to do the Ome Temple Loop. We'd no idea what we were in for. This was a rather amazing day of no real flat riding, you climbed and climbed till the road went downwards and then the route turned to find another way up seemingly endless mountain passes. I was the happy owner of a new 11-28T cassette so I was sure I could get up anything. The first big climb was a monster of steepness. Not sure what grade exactly but I'd never hit anything like it before and even in my 39-28, I was grunting and cursing my pedals around at what felt like 0kmph in places. Holy moly. This was definitely the steepest uphill section of the day but the remainder wasn't so easy either especially after that hill had taken huge chunks of reserves out of the system.

The descents were narrow and not so clean but enjoyable all the same. I had the honor of leading down one particular descent when all of a sudden there were 3 huge dump trunks in front of me heading upwards. There was zero space on the side of them to pass and I was really happy and quite impressed at holding the bike together as I hit both brakes and went sliding this way and that to a halt just in front of the now stopped truck. Thanks for stopping mr truck! We walked our bikes passed the truck and carried on a little less confident perhaps in what we'd find ahead.

We didn't really stop for anything to eat apart from a cliff bar I had in my pocket and two bottles of water. With about 30k to go I was bonking and the hills were taking their toll. Finally we reached a main road where I let myself believe it would be all downhill to Ome. Not going to happen though. I was so wrecked that I never noticed I was in the big ring going up this long drag to a tunnel. No cadence and no legs and no brain to look. At the top of the hill I searched for the big ring and was confused when the lever didn't move. (insert curse here)

Was delighted to see a holiday express direct to Tokyo was the next train as we hit the platform and less delighted when it pulled up jammed full. We still got the bikes in and I managed to eat a burrito and drink some fluids while holding on to my bike and the hand rail on the way home.

Really happy I didn't do this one in the heat of summer. I'm looking forward to trying it again though now that I know what to expect. I'll definitely be raiding the combini at the station to put some calories in the system more often during the ride.

Top day out though and some great company to boot. Respect to @Deej for finding such a monster.

Also fun that this was on the HalfFast menu this Sunday. Looking forward to hearing how you guys got on!
 
Saturday @theDude, one other dude and I headed for Ome to do the Ome Temple Loop. We'd no idea what we were in for. This was a rather amazing day of no real flat riding, you climbed and climbed till the road went downwards and then the route turned to find another way up seemingly endless mountain passes. I was the happy owner of a new 11-28T cassette so I was sure I could get up anything. The first big climb was a monster of steepness. Not sure what grade exactly but I'd never hit anything like it before and even in my 39-28, I was grunting and cursing my pedals around at what felt like 0kmph in places. Holy moly. This was definitely the steepest uphill section of the day but the remainder wasn't so easy either especially after that hill had taken huge chunks of reserves out of the system.

The descents were narrow and not so clean but enjoyable all the same. I had the honor of leading down one particular descent when all of a sudden there were 3 huge dump trunks in front of me heading upwards. There was zero space on the side of them to pass and I was really happy and quite impressed at holding the bike together as I hit both brakes and went sliding this way and that to a halt just in front of the now stopped truck. Thanks for stopping mr truck! We walked our bikes passed the truck and carried on a little less confident perhaps in what we'd find ahead.

We didn't really stop for anything to eat apart from a cliff bar I had in my pocket and two bottles of water. With about 30k to go I was bonking and the hills were taking their toll. Finally we reached a main road where I let myself believe it would be all downhill to Ome. Not going to happen though. I was so wrecked that I never noticed I was in the big ring going up this long drag to a tunnel. No cadence and no legs and no brain to look. At the top of the hill I searched for the big ring and was confused when the lever didn't move. (insert curse here)

Was delighted to see a holiday express direct to Tokyo was the next train as we hit the platform and less delighted when it pulled up jammed full. We still got the bikes in and I managed to eat a burrito and drink some fluids while holding on to my bike and the hand rail on the way home.

Really happy I didn't do this one in the heat of summer. I'm looking forward to trying it again though now that I know what to expect. I'll definitely be raiding the combini at the station to put some calories in the system more often during the ride.

Top day out though and some great company to boot. Respect to @Deej for finding such a monster.

Also fun that this was on the HalfFast menu this Sunday. Looking forward to hearing how you guys got on!


Nice Saturday outing for sure. Not sure what all the fuss is about.... few rollers, really.




























lol.

My hands are still sore from holding the brakes going downhill. So much for the nice descents, they were almost as hard as going up! (almost)
 
Not to mention, we did the "Discovery Route"..... never been there, following the Garmin, which isn't the greatest. Several wrong turns, handful of loopbacks, many back uphill. Oh well. 2700m for me over 100km. Maybe it's easier if we did "just" the Ome Loop?
 
A couple hours out riding this morning. Very wet, tho not raining.

Compensation was this afternoon: Ron Carter, amazing solos, along with a quartet for about 70 minutes.
 
I was still 23 km short of my weekly minimum goal of 100 km after my Arakawa loop on Saturday, the first day of recovery after I had caught a cold. Nevertheless I suggested to my wife to go for a drive together on Sunday, to show her some of the places where I go cycling. She wants to get more exercise again and my son suggested she should also get a road bike.

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So around noon we set out for Musashiitsukaichi in the Prius. It was my first trip up to Tomin no mori and Lake Okutama in the car. My first trip to Tomin no mori had been by train and bus for hiking, all other trips had been by bike. So what's different? We followed the route suggested by the GPS, though we avoided Chuo expressway. By car it turned out to be only marginally faster or the same speed as I had previously managed by bicycle. The roads were busy and it took about an hour to get to near Tachikawa, about 15 minutes quicker than by bike. We passed Musashiitsukaichi station after two hours, about as quick as on my fastest run out there on my Bike Friday. The car probably would have been significantly quicker if we had left in the early morning, when I usually cycle out there, but still.

The other impression was that busy roads are a lot less frustrating on a bike than a car because the busier the roads, the more progress you make relative to the cars. If you're using back roads or bike paths along the river, traffic on the main roads used by cars doesn't matter anyway.

The weather was brilliant. Not a cloud in the sky. The autumn colours were far advanced, with quite a few trees half bare in places, but still very colourful elsewhere. After a late lunch at a small family-run restaurant near the station we headed up the valley to Tomin, through forgotten-in-time villages. The sun was getting low as we finally passed the Tomin no Mori trailhead station, continuing on to the top where we stopped at two car parks to take in the views.

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Then the long descent to Lake Okutama, which is fun-fun-fun on a bike. Nice views along the lake as we headed on towards Oume on Rt411. Then 2 hours of busy roads to get back home again.

Seeing the climb up to Tomin no Mori and beyond did not put my wife off the idea of cycling. She loved the views. I hope the next trip there will be on a bicycle :)


P. S. After dinner I headed to Shinjuku and back for another 25 km before midnight, bringing the weekly total to 102, just over the self-imposed minimum. My average cadence measured by the new sensor worked out to be 80 rpm.
 
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Going in for <hopefully> last round of IV antibiotics. Still feel like I've been run over by a truck but managed to ride 25km from Shinjuku to home. Infection seems stemmed, now just to kill off the buggers once and for all!
 
Still not well enough to do a full ride, and an incredibly busy day. But enjoyed the amazing weather with a short trip to Jindaiji. The leaves there are perfect right now.
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Noticed that my tyres/wheels are a lot more noisy on this bike than my other one.

Bloody tourists!
Jindaiji resident.....
 
Bloody tourists!
Jindaiji resident.....
Haha, terribly sorry to invade your turf. Nearly bought a house there once, and boost the local economy frequently buying odango and soba, does that give me a pass?
 
Saturday @theDude, one other dude and I headed for Ome to do the Ome Temple Loop....
....Also fun that this was on the HalfFast menu this Sunday. Looking forward to hearing how you guys got on!
Yes I did the same route on Sunday with some HFC crew. First time for me and guiding using a route kindly passed to me by Mike. Can't work out where we went wrong because the ultra steep section up onto the Greenline turned into a grass/gravel track and we had to double back for 500m and go up another way (still steep but I suspect not the extreme riser shown by Mike's flash graphic). Turned out to be a winner for the views, and I suspect nicer climbing, but still gets to the same altitude with just a little more distance. I dropped Mike an e-mail today to try to figure out what went wrong.
I was so wrecked that I never noticed I was in the big ring going up this long drag to a tunnel
Likewise my legs were completely failing by that point and I just wanted to get to Ome (even considered turning round at that point and enjoying that brilliant ride into Hanno instead) - anyway made it to Ome. Took us until 4pm with a 9.30 start and just WATTs for rests.
 
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Slush today. Or maybe you could say あられ mixed with rain. (あられ is an unusual character: 霰)

Rode last Sunday a little, again on Wednesday (with 10m/s wind). Otherwise, it's been cold rain for almost two weeks.
 
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